The Worst Job in the World
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come complains about his job.


Disclaimer: No, I don't own a Christmas carol.  
  
A/N: Came up with this after watching the local theater's production of A Christmas Carol for the 5th time this year. It's supposed to be a parody, not taken seriously. It's a comic reflection from the ghost of Christmas yet to come.  
  
I have a rough time, y'know? Yeah, sure, I only have to work one day a year, but still, it's so hard. I have to fill up twenty four hours of that. twenty four hours non stop, world wide. Showing people the most god awful depressing stuff in the world. Like this one fella, almost wrote him off as hopeless, but the first two ghosts, can't say I care much for either of them, but that's besides the point. Well anyway, they already knocked some sense into the guy.  
  
But he was the most stingy, odious, asinine man one could have met. A real skinflint if you know want I mean. He was the type that didn't spend a single extra penny, ever. Not even on himself. Why the man ate gruel for dinner every night, he didn't even bother buying himself a fine meal! He almost sent old Iggy himself down to the workhouse. Cute kid that Iggy. He threatened to at least. Nina stopped him though with her whole "doom" speech. That seems to do a fair good job of things half the time.  
  
But anyway, I'm getting off track again. So this guy, Ebenezer I think his name was, what kind of a name is that? His old business partner, who was giving me the rundown on him, had a nice normal name, what happened to this fella? Only name I can think of worse is Aloysius, or maybe Clarence. But Jake, that's his old business partner, he was a real nice guy. Really saw the error of his ways. Well, after he had to get all chained up. I hate to see a guy in chains like that, but sometimes, it's the only way.  
  
So this Ebenezer fellow, boy that was a depressing case. He led a depressing life too, his sister died when he was young, and she was pretty much the only family he had. He's got a nephew somewhere, but he doesn't care much for the boy. I was hard pressed trying to come up with visions. The first two, Nina and Michelle, they have it easy. Especially Nina. Michelle has to do some work, but all that is is finding out some of his old memories.  
  
And all Nina has to do is dig up some big old Christmas parties. Me? I have to take a lucky guess at the path he's heading down and make it as depressing as possible. Really cheery, don't you think? My job is as merry as an undertaker. Undertakers are great fellows to use in these things too, it's amazing the effect that hearing others talk about you as if you're dead can have. So I have to take the most morbid friends of his, the ones that are most likely to drop dead and show them to him. Make him guess at ways to help.  
  
So I'm pouring over his life. I suppose this is what I should do for the other eleven months I don't work, but hey, I have a tough job, I like to vacation in some happy spot. It's hard to fit in though, being twelve feet tall, but somehow I manage. I pick big tourist spots, a lot less people notice you, but I still get fairly well noticed. I've taken to renting a beach house for the past few years though. Not like I need a tan though, I'm already pretty decently dark.  
  
Well, I dig up his clerk's family. Sad lot they are. They'd be a lot better off if the man would be just a tad bit more generous when it came to his precious money. Then again, if he were just a tad more generous, I wouldn't have to be doing this. He only pays his sole employee fifteen shillings a week. You can't even buy three loaves of bread for that money! And there's six of them. But they seem like such a happy bunch. The clerk, his wife, and the four kids.  
  
Nina already said she was taking him to go see his clerk's Christmas party, and I figured I could expand upon it a bit. Cause turns out his clerk's got a sick kid, polio, or something like that, all I know is the kid's got a crutch and ain't feeling too healthy. So I have to conjure up a grave for the poor kid and drag this bumbling fool of a cheapskate up to it. it's a lot easier to conjure things up in dreams than it is in real life though, so it's not too bad.  
  
So I drag him down to see this sick kid's grave, and that scares him enough. That really seems to creep him out a bit. Then I show him his clerk walking to the grave, all solemnly like, barely even walking, it's more like he's dragging himself along. Then the clerk starts sobbing. I always was a master at writing melodrama. It's quite fun really, I guess that's how I got stuck in this role. It's a tough job, but I'm pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself. Modesty was never one of my strong points.  
  
Then I cut to the clerk heading home, still crying a bit, and his family. Coming up with these things is exactly like writing a script. Only you have to use his memories and whatever as the cast, which makes it just a tad bit harder, but that's alright. So I cut to this clerk's whole family crying, and the clerk, Crotchitch I think his name was, or something like that. I wouldn't want to go around with *that* last name if you paid me.  
  
And I have the Clerk come up with some sad tale of how he could feel this sick kid walking beside him. And he goes on to ramble about what a nice place a cemetery is. It really is a pretty nice place, the one I came up with. Most cemeteries are. They're all shady and restful. They're great places to sit and relax and come up with a bunch of ways to scare some people who care only about how many pence are in their pocket to realizing what love is.  
  
So after I drag this miserable old miser down to see how this sick kid dies, and how his family is in tatters over it, but still together, I drag him to go see a few of the others that I have to get around to visiting sometime. Bonds and Stocks I think their names were. How ironic, their names even reflect his love for money. So anyway, I have them talking about how cold of a man this Scrooge guy was, and how cold and callous and unfeeling he was, even though they have no room to talk.  
  
Then I show a bunch of people hocking his possessions. I got word from Nina and Michelle that his most prized possession was this old music box that his dear departed sister, Fan, gave him. Fan, that's another odd name. What was up with this guy's parents when they named their kids. Fan Scrooge? What kind of a name is that, it's almost as bad as Ebenezer. But as I said before, the only names even worse than that are Clarence and Aloysius, or maybe Hannah, I don't know.  
  
So here's a group of people, his undertaker, a right creepy old man I made him out to be. Oh, he even gave me the shivers. A creepy old man with false teeth that he stole from the corpse and all. And his laundress was there, this loud rambunctious woman who always had to get her two cents in. and then his housekeeper, Dilbert I think her name was. And his undertaker just hocks some of the stuff he was wearing, shoe buckles and the like.  
  
His laundress took his bed curtains, though I don't see why anyone would want them, they were some of the ugliest things I've ever seen. this ugly burgundy color, the color of a monk's robe. Oh, and I had her take his nightgown off as well, and hock that. That gave the poor man a fright. Only I don't suppose he was poor, not after how much of a cheapskate he was. But anyways, it's a description, an idiom. So he's freaking out about this, and then out comes Dilbert.  
  
She's got this music box his sister gave him, and I'll admit, it is a really nice thing, it's all crystal and shiny, and it plays a fairly nice melody as well. So she brings out that, and she's about to get paid fairly well for it, when the undertaker and laundress start to fight for it. So after they almost resort to fisticuffs, they drop the music box. And as it's all crystal, the thing shatters into a million and forty some odd pieces. Well this is the last straw for our previously not so good man.  
  
And he goes running to the spot where the music box lays in shreds and sinks to his knees before it sobbing. I guess it really was his most prized possession. And after he spends around five minutes blubbering over this damned thing, he looks up to find the people gone. I guess he had it in his mind to beat them down or something. But I guess he remembered that he's nothing more than a fly on the wall, that he couldn't do anything to these people if he tried.  
  
So after this, I show him the piece du resistance. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever come up with, I think. It really is a masterpiece, a morbid masterpiece, but a masterpiece none the less. It really is gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Modesty was never exactly my strong point. I have a habit of being quite the egotist, but it's all well and good. It's not like it's going to get me in trouble any day or anything. Not anymore at least. I kinda need a big head to do the job I do.  
  
So anyways, back to the masterpiece. It truly is great. It's this huge, magnificent grave. I really outdid myself with how I great I made it. I have it start off in flames, burning his name into it. Really clever. Fire is a great thing to use in these things. You'd be amazed at how scared some people are of fire. It always seems to have a magnificent effect on people. I considered showing him his house burning down, but that was too much work, fire's hard stuff to manipulate.  
  
Well, I show this old skinflint his grave, after the flames burn themselves out, and suffice it to say that he's pretty well spooked. Then I open up the grave, and the ground around it so he falls in. that's the most annoying part of any job. You have to come up with some way for them to wind up back in their bedrooms. You need to open up some sort of portal that fits in with what their case is, whatever you decide for them to do last.  
  
So I had him fall face first into his own grave and go spiraling back to that bedroom of his. That place could use some serious redecorating, but that's not my place to say anything. I'm just the big tall scary ghost who bosses people around, and shows them the most morbid things I can come up with. I would have loved to be an interior designer though, I guess I'm more suited for this job than I am to be walking through paint stores telling people which colors look best.  
  
He was a depressing creepy little fellow. Can't say I'm very much sad to get rid of him. There are a few guys that you really grow attached to. His partner in business was a lot better of a guy. A tad bit stingier, true, but he was a lot more interesting than this fellow. This fellow led the most boring, uninteresting life one could find. I'm sure a fly has more adventures than this man could ever hope for. A fly is also a lot nicer.  
  
Ah, but as much as I complain about this job, it's really not that bad. You certainly get to meet some interesting people, like this Ebenezer fella. Boy, that was a piece of work. So was his clerk, Crotcitch, or whatever the hell the guy's name was. Four kids, and such low wages, but I think between the three of us we fixed that problem. So now I have another eleven months to do whatever I want, I think Bermuda is looking quite enticing this year, or perhaps Jamaica. 


End file.
